The Anime Appreciation Thread
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Page 28

Welp, looks like I'm dropping Mahou Shoujo Site now. Didn't even get half way through the latest episode as it was absolute garbage, and I predict it's going to get worse from there with that shitty character still there. A shame.

The Devil gets driven out of his dimension and goes into exile on Earth. Here he's weak and loses most of his powers. At first he plans to recover and take back his kingdom, but he quickly realises if he plans to stay, he'll need a home and a job. He starts working at a fast food restaurant and discovers he has a bit of a flair for business.

I found the premise hysterically funny, the jokes don't always live up to the concept but I enjoyed it a great deal, and the characters are stereotypical but also charming. It sticks to formula but does it well, it's by no means a classic but it's worth a watch. No sign of a second season but I'd love to see how they would develop it further.

I see Darling in the FranXX has now hit the point previously seen in Gurren Lagann and Kill la Kill where it throws common sense and proportion out the window and dials the scale of the conflict up massively. Good fun.

But after a shaky start (and an irritating habit of making every 5th ep a recap), Beatless has turned into the most interesting current 2-cour from me. It originally teased that it might be just another robot-girlfriend show. It isn't. Instead, it's a really interesting piece of conceptual sci-fi about the implications of machine intelligence (and a massively more intelligent commentary on the issue than... say... Detroit).

Full Metal Panic S4 pulled a pretty big twist and what was basically a mic-drop episode this week. Annoyingly, though, it seems to be following Beatless's model of having very regular, scheduled recap eps, so it takes another week off next week. Suspect this new "every 4th/5th ep is a recap" thing is the industry's response to the staff shortages and consequent production disasters that have been growing for a few seasons now (e.g. Marchen Madchen).

Steins;Gate 0 is very solid. Do wish, though, it would also remember to be a little bit awesome as well (like the original was).

Legend of the Galactic Heroes continues to be dry as dust, but worth watching just for the production values (for now).

Sword Art Online Alternative is good fun, despite that terrible first episode. It's less dark than the "better" arcs of the original SAO (Aincrad and Mother's Rosario), but handles a lighter tone better than the rest of the main series does. The pink bunny has sharp fangs!

Persona 5 has improved a bit, but is still not a patch on the game. They seem to be getting better at pacing now, but they fundamentally misjudged the tone and pacing of those opening episodes (covering arguably the strongest arc in the game) so much that it will be difficult to recover.

High School DXD S4 is pretty rubbish. DXD's selling point was always that it was the stupid fanservice series that was actually good. There were signs by the end of S3 that they were losing the thread with it. S4 - and the shift to a new studio - has confirmed its demise. The comic timing and ability to flip the tone suddely that made the early seasons so good has gone.

My Hero Academia S3 is pulling things up a bit. I was about ready to drop the show on the grounds that - while well made - it was ultimately a very predictable shonen genre affair. Since the end of the (very clichéd) training camp arc, it's shaken its own formula up massively and is much more interesting now.

Wotakoi is very decent and had a good episode this week. A well-written show, with a light enough touch to dodge the melodrama that 3D Kanojo descended into.

Uma Musume had its last episode this week and - to my great surprise - was a charming little show. Far from being a cheap mobige cash-in, it was a surprisingly sincere show that took its silly fictional sport and horsegirls seriously enough that it actually worked. I'll miss it now it's over.

Comic Girls continues to be great. It's a very well written comedy - sharply observed and with impeccable timing. This week's episode was particularly solid.

Amanchu S2 is garbage. Biggest drop-off in quality I've seen between first and second seasons since Minami-ke (oh, ok, or maybe Psycho Pass). Dream sequences are almost always rubbish and they've pulled together a season which is almost entirely composed of them.

GarlVinland wrote:
The new Blazblue game features characters from RWBY. Never watched it before but reviews seem to indicate it's very popular, even though it seems to be an American series. Might give it a watch.

I like it, episodes are really short (10 or so minutes each) so watching weekly is a pain but they are alot o fun.

Just watched the last episode of FranXX. Decent show, but there was something lacking compared to Trigger's previous shows (including Gurren Lagann here as an honorary Trigger show). The soundtrack! Ok, the soundtracks for Gurren Lagann, Kill la Kill and Little Witch Academia might not have been great in a conventional sense, but by god their fit their shows. FranXX's soundtrack is just... meh. Otherwise, though, a very good show.

Eh, it's been more enjoyable watching the frothing crowd work themselves up before the most deflating end nobody imagined. It passed the time I suppose, but it was stuck between the craziness of Trigger and the formality of A-1, and ultimately didn't land in either camp.

Still, better space battles than the CGI copypasta of LotGH.

Hisone no Masotan and Hinamatsuri ticked most of the boxes for me despite some misfires, Megalo Box was a nice slice of the old-school, very Manglobe-era in it's artistic choice and that soundtrack is superb. Verdict on Golden Kamuy is on hiatus until it's continuation, but was certainly losing me towards the end there with it's continued juggling of what it wants to be (serious, comedy, cooking, Scooby-doo hotel gags ?). I know it's supposedly faithful to the manga, but it feels like throwing everything in and hoping it sticks.

Best show overall for me ? Rokuhoudou Yotsuiro Biyori. Perfectly paced, nice humour and comfy SoL will always filter through, and I wasn't even expecting much from it to begin with. Quite the surprise, and the fujoshi-fest it was advertised as never really materialised thankfully. The dark horse was definitely Piano no Mori, and terrible CGI piano hands aside, it's been an enjoyable ride. Big thumbs up for the Nodame style cour-finale of 20mins of piano playing and reactions, and looking forward to the second cour in the new year.

So, AoT S3 and Overlord S3 as the heavy hitters for Summer. Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro and Asobi Asobase as the comedies, BANANA FISH and Grand Blue the 'hype!' pair, Kyoto Teramachi Sanjou no Holmes, High Score Girl, Tsukumogami Kashimasu and Angolmois: Genkou Kassenki as the "hopefully good" picks, and a compare and contrast between Back Street Girls: Gokudolls and Hanebado, the former lacking anything resembling animation, and the latter animated waaay above what is necessary (Sweaty Thighs:The Anime).

Thought it was going to be poor, but that's a lot of shows on reflection. And no trashy isekai, no siree.

I'm not a massive anime fan - i flirt with various movies here and there, but actually started watching AOT a week or so back as it seems to be recommend a lot (mainly the first page of this thread haha) It's not bad, the premise and set up is really interesting but i know what you mean about shouting about everything, especially the initial lead character (got to an episode where something's happened). It does have all the over silly melodrama of various anime's and those internal monologues but i have enjoyed what i have watched but so far.

Planet With: Tried two episodes. It's a pretty enough sci-fi show, but it set my hipster-alarm buzzing. Suspect it may disappear up its own arse before too long. We're not talking Gatchaman Crowds levels of hateful-hipsteriness, but it could well rank in at least near Flip Flappers level.

Happy Sugar Life: Decent-looking yandere show. The title is definitely misleading, as it wastes no time going some very dark places. May be a bit too uncomfortable for some, but I took reassurance from the fact that it clearly knows full well just how wrong some of its content is.

Satsuriku no Tenshi: Slasher-horror. Starts well enough, but even by the mid-point of episode 1, it's starting to descend into bullshit a bit too quickly for my liking. May give it a couple more episodes, but expectations are low.

Grand Blue: Well, that was weird. Kind of reminds me of those gross-out frat-comedy movies that were popular in the late 90s and early 00s. Contains enough alcohol consumption that I could feel a sympathetic hangover just from watching it. Better than I expected.

Isekai Maou to Shoukan Shoujo no Dorei Majutsu: 24 minutes of my life that I'll never get back.

Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight: The big surprise of the night. Starts out looking like a fairly standard idol-ish show. Then there's a lift... and a tower... and a transformation sequence... and a talking giraffe... and some remarkably kinetic duel sequences. Pretty sure it can't be channeling Revolutionary Girl Utena so hard by accident. Had me more interested than any of the other first-episodes I tried last night.

Hanebad: Decent-looking "serious" sports show. Made me think a bit of Hibike Euphonium, only with badminton instead of band.

Harukana Receive: Another decent-looking sports show, but nothing particularly serious about this one. It's a beach volleyball show, so as you'd expect, a lot of the focus is on the "plot" and the "backstory". Weirdly, as I watched it, I actually found myself remembering the rules and tactics from the very first DOAX on the original Xbox.

Chio's School Road: Fun first episode, but god only knows how they're going to stretch it out to a full series.

Ongaku Shoujo: Pretty traditional idol show, albeit one which, on the basis of the first episode, feels like it might be genuinely geared towards a younger female audience rather than the... erm... older male audience that IM@S and Love Live attract.

Rogueywon wrote:
Meh, I've cooled a lot on Titan over the years. When it works, it works well. That's mostly in the first few episodes of the first and second seasons.

Outside of those short runs of really memorable episodes, it tends to devolve too much into lengthy exposition and pointlessly protracted dialogue. Plus it tends to mistake "shouting" for "emotion".

I've accepted those internal monologues and internal expositions as just part and parcel of anime's now, but I think they're exceedingly worse when you're not binging. When you have just 20 mins of an episose a week, the last thing you want of those precious few minutes is time spent wasted on exposition filler.

Speaking of anime's full of lengthy internal expositions, I've finally just started on Boku No Hero/My Hero Academia.

Graxlar_v3 wrote:
I am not a fan of them washing the first three movies from canon.

I am. The last 2 in particular have been thoroughly washed from my memory. Bio-Broly, ewww.

It's tedious retelling Broly for the nth time, but I do like the potential of this and the description that it's a space opera; telling 3 different narratives over 3 different timelines all connected.

I'm also hoping it;
1. Rectifies the plothole/retcon of the legendary saiyan myth, which was such a huge draw and build up to the first SSJ transformation.
2. Somehow connects it to the new SSG retcon/plothole that Toriyama instantly forgot by the next saga in Super.

I think Toritaro who's doing the manga, clearly has been given some stuff in regards to the Broly movie, as it seems to have seeped into the recent Super manga (which I'm thoroughly enjoying, only because it's doing a far better job for my fav character in Gohan). It recently referenced Kale as "the legendary demonic super saiyan that shows up every 1000 years". Ignoring the fact that going into the tournament, they didn't even know what a Super Saiyan was, but the use of "demonic" kind indicates they're going to merge the LSSJ and SSG myths into one.

Rogueywon wrote:
I’ve avoided direct spoilers, but aren’t we now headed into the bits of the source material that most people hate?

Haven't watched it yet, gonna start mid August so I can binge a bit.
But yeah, that was my fear of S3, it would enter the phase of the narrative that was pretty damn dull in the manga (and also where I stopped).

Couldn't give a toss about the royal family and human v human battles. It's never why I fell in love with the show in the first place.

Does AoT get better after that lull? I'm kind of hesitant to follow an ongoing show if it just gets worse, which I've heard about AoT. Sounds a lot like a one-season wonder to me. I have all the English manga so I could probably just read them...

@The-Bodybuilder I always thought the show "worked" when it did horror and pretty much sucked when it tried to do anything else. Those early episodes of season 1 are horror and very effective at it. They rediscover that for a while in season 2 with the "besieged in the tower" episodes.

Much of the rest is either dull political "intrigue" or a barrage of the usual shonen clichés.

Seems the manga creator want's to regiggle and sort out that slow period with the anime, so don't expect an exact copy. Think he's possibly trying to mix a bit of exposition and action into each episode judging by that opening episode, so I'm expecting flashbacks bookended with fisticuffs.

Then again, I thought the Kenny stuff happened after the conclusion of the Beast stuff. Been a while since I'd flicked through the manga.

For what it's worth, Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight is my show-of-the-season so far, based on the opening episodes. Hadn't expected to see a show channeling Revolutionary Girl Utena so hard in 2018. The second episode nailed the "feel" of the old show pretty much perfectly, while also having very solid modern production values and enough of its own character that it didn't feel unnecessary.

I had next to no expectations for that show, given it's part of one of those accursed multimedia franchises. But having checked who's involved in it, there's some serious talent on the production side and it's hit the ball out of the park so far.

Watched the first ep of AOT3 yesterday. I think it's a bit like when Game of Thrones starts a new season and they have to spend a good episode or two just move all the pieces into place. I'd much prefer to binge it but not sure I can wait that long.

Only real disappointment for me was the new opening music. Not exactly epic compared to the previous seasons.